


be home with you

by ghostking (damnedtreasure)



Category: Dungle Drags (Dungeons & Dragons Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Light Angst, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 15:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15122456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnedtreasure/pseuds/ghostking
Summary: "Your friends do not show up. Night passes, and still nothing. Two nights, three. Four. Weeks. Months.Years."hey what if the actual worst thing had happened that woulda been wild huh





	be home with you

**Author's Note:**

> Scribbled this down in a notebook between watching 68 and 69, to cope with all the stuff that happened in that wild ride

_"Your friends do not show up. Night passes, and still nothing. Two nights, three. Four. Weeks. Weeks go by._

_Years."_

 

One-sided text conversations. About their day, about a cool animal they saw, about how Wren and the others are doing, hey Reverence you'll never guess what...

 

They... drift. After a few years, they've started to drift apart, the four of them. But.

 

Each year, they gather, and they sit and spend a day and a night. Just talking. Remembering. Because their friends are coming back. They _are._ They just don't know when.

 

The revolution slowly learns of them, of these people trapped in time. Word spreads, enough that most people in Gladia know that if certain people pop in out of nowhere, a call would be taken up, and a reunion long-awaited would finally happen.

 

Each year, they gather. Tell stories. Remember. And they wait. Time seems to pass so slowly.

Five years.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

And then...

 

It's one of those nights, those once-a-year nights where they're all in one place together and a thud of an empty glass against wood sounds within the near-empty tavern.

A sigh.

"But what if they're not."

"Noah-"

"No, what if they just... aren't. Everything we know about timeshifts like this, it's been on a scale, almost. And we-" he shakes his head, a half-amused laugh nearly makes its way past his chest- "We know a _lot_ about timeshifts like this. More than most! More than most of anyone, really, because we've been scraping together knowledge for eight damn _years_ and so what if they _aren't_."

Merit lays a hand on his arm, but doesn't speak.

Wren... behind the mask, well. They aren't quite sure.

"We-" Pen starts, and rolls their empty glass between their hands. "We know how long we were there, right?"

"Are we going over the numbers again?"

"Yes." Pen shoots a mild glare. "Because we spent just over eight hours there, right? And... Since they didn't come back eight minutes, days, or weeks later,"

"Or months."

"Or months later, the next is years. And it's been eight years."

"Almost to the damn day. That's my point. What if they _aren't_."

"They have to be," Wren says, the first he's said in an hour. "They have to come out the other side sometime."

Noah goes to say something, then shakes his head. "Alright."

"Has anyone called them recently?" Merit asks.

Pen nods. "Yesterday."

"This morning," Wren says.

"'Course."

Merit sighs. "Well. I guess we're waiting still."

 

\---

 

In the dead of night, which in Gladia is not very dead at all, three figures fall out of nowhere, tumbling onto hard-packed sandstone.

Gladia is... Not how they remember it.

There is a frantic buzzing and jingling recognizable to many Gladians as a kinda outdated default ringtone.

"Oh _god_ ," one figure breathes, as she looks down at her smartstone.

"Shit shitshitshit-"the other says, fumbling his own. "Eight and a half _years_ oh shit-"

Behind them, someone halts abruptly. "Ah." They turn back behind them and call to someone. "Your, ah, friends are here."

 

**Author's Note:**

> TBC cause I've got more somewhere I just dont remember where but I wrote out the reunion at least. might continue past that who knows
> 
> unedited uncut and unseen by anyone but me, and the me that wrote it was uh... not quite sober? so.  
> title is from 'In A Week' by Hozier bc that's what I was listening to while writing this and it felt fitting
> 
> some people?? write shitty fic??? to cope?????


End file.
